Universalism, communitarianism and human rights: A reply to Chris Brown

Abstract

In a recent issue of The International Journal of Human Rights (1/2 Summer 1997) Professor Chris Brown, a scholar distinguished particularly for his integration of the disciplines of international relations and political theory, launched a forceful attack on the idea of universal human rights. This response argues that Professor Brown's attack has three targets ‐ human rights activists, the idea of human rights and the philosophy of liberal universalism ‐ and that it fails in each case. It attacks human rights activists unsuccessfully because it caricatures their beliefs. It fails to undermine the idea of universal human rights because its own ethical theory requires some version of that idea. And it fails to refute liberal universalism because its own supposed alternative is implicitly both liberal and universalist. This article concludes by affirming that the very importance and contested character of the idea of universal human rights entails that serious critiques should be welcomed, and that Professor Brown's attack, though unsuccessful, has opened up an important space for dialogue.